Mr. Herbert's murder was received with such exuberant delight in Kerry that my steward said to me:—
'You would think, sir, that rent was abolished and the duty taken off whisky.'
Constabulary had for a long while to be told off to prevent his grave being desecrated.
That is a pretty tough outrage for optimistic philanthropists to consider when they are addicted to announcing how far our generations have progressed from barbarism.
The price of blood in Kerry was not high. For example, the men that murdered FitzMaurice were paid £5 for the job, and they had never seen him before. His family had to be under police protection for five years, and I managed to get £1000 subscribed for them in England, Mr. Froude taking an enthusiastic and generous interest in a very sad case. The victim left two daughters, who both married policemen.
One young and cheery Kerry landlord was very proud, about 1886, at the price of forty shillings being offered for his life by the Land League, whereas nearly all the others were only valued at half a sovereign apiece.
As a matter of fact, almost any one could have been shot at Castleisland if a sovereign were offered, for they cared no more for human life than for that of a rat. Parnell himself would have been shot by any one of a couple of dozen fellows willing to earn a dishonest living if a five-pound note had been locally put upon his head. A patriotic philanthropist, destitute of the bowels of compassion and of every dictate of humanity, might have saved a great deal of undeserved suffering if he had made this donation towards his 'removal'—a pretty euphemism of Land League coinage.
Most of that generation are dead, in gaol, or have emigrated. It would take the deuce of a big sum to tempt any Castleislander to-day to commit murder, except under provocation, and the same improvement is observable all over Ireland. I believe a hundred pounds might be put on the head of the least popular agent or landlord, and he might walk unscathed without police protection.
All that has been set forth in this chapter might be regarded as a heavy indictment of crime and disorder, but I cannot avoid adding one confirmatory piece of evidence, as eloquent as it is accurate. This is the fearful description of the state of Kerry which appears in Judge O'Brien's charge to the Grand Jury at the Assizes, founded, of course, on the report of outrages submitted to him. It is impossible to guess in what stronger words his opinions would have been expressed if the total number of outrages committed had been laid before him; but it is well known that only a few of those committed were reported, as, if the criminals were taken up and identified, the victims would be likely to be shot in revenge, while the guilty persons, tried by a sympathising jury, would obtain acquittal and popular advertisement.
The charge was as follows:—